Issue - meetings

1.    That Cabinet note:

(a)  The projected financial impact of Covid-19 for 2020/21 as set out in section 1 of the report.

(b)  The service updates provided in section 2 of the report.

Decision

1.    That Cabinet note:

(a)  The projected financial impact of Covid-19 for 2020/21 as set out in section 1 of the report.

(b)  The service updates provided in section 2 of the report.

Corporate objectives

The financial impact and the Council’s response to Covid-19 will impact all of the Council’s Corporate Objectives.

Monitoring Officer comments

The Monitoring Officer continues to monitor the key issues raised by legislative changes and relevant government guidance and ensure that effective policies and procedures are in place to assist services to continue to deliver during the pandemic and subsequent recovery phase.

S151 Officer comments

The Financial Implications section of the report have been written by the S151 officer and will continue to be monitored as actual costs become clearer.   Members will be regularly updated on the financial implications of Covid-19 as they develop.

Advice

S Marshall ran through the main highlights of the report. In light of the announcement on restrictions announced by the Prime Minister today, the implications of this will be explored at the Incident Management Team this week. There was a clear message today about continuing to work from home but there is still a need to still provide local services. S Marshall paid tribute to teams who have worked hard throughout the crisis and adapted to new ways of working particularly the Environmental Health team who have assisted with the Track and Trace programme over the summer and the demand will increase on this service over the winter months.

Councillor Williams provided an update on the Old Town Hall. He said he attended the Housing & Community OSC meeting where the committee discussed the possibility of reopening the hall. The configuration of the hall and its financial viability make it a huge challenge to try and reopen safely with a meaningful programme and therefore, a decision has been taken to not reopen the Old Town Hall before the end of the calendar year. This decision will be review in January 2021. There will be an opportunity to redeploy the staff to other departments.

S Marshall added that there are various roles across the council that are critical to the covid-19 response that the staff can be redeployed in to. This will take into account the staff’s existing skills such as health and safety, admin work and communications.

Councillor Tindall referred to page 38, paragraph 2.25 about the LEP and was concerned that there was no mention of small businesses. He asked for further information on how the LEP was helping businesses.

S Marshall said they had a comprehensive programme and the LEP is working closely with businesses and the Economic Development Team at Dacorum. There are packages on the LEP website and they are engaging with businesses and have access to various forms of funding such as self-funding and crowd funding. The LEP is leading on the economic recovery cell on behalf of the Hertfordshire public sector and the key aspects are updated weekly with all the council Chief Executives.

Councillor  ...  view the full minutes text for item 77